Chapter 6
GARRETT
Head up, eyes up. Don’t carry it.
Garrett’s thighs burn from crouching. His lungs burn.
Sweat runs under his chest protector in rivulets, and he lets it happen.
Ignores it. He can’t track anything but the puck, anyway.
Or the idea of it. Where it might go. Where it wants to go.
His body’s locked into his flow state, that static hyper-awareness he only finds in the net, when everything else drops away.
He’s holding steady. Playing fine.
But the second-period goal is still crawling under his skin.
A wrister from the high slot that bounced off a stick and went glove side, half an inch higher than he expected.
He got a piece of it. Not enough. He’s replayed it eight times in his head already, and each time his glove hand moves a little faster, a little higher, like regret could rewrite history.
It can’t. So he shrugs it off. That’s the rule.
Head up, eyes up. Don’t carry it.
By the third period, center ice is a battlefield. The Storm start chirping more, hacking more. Number 11 barrels straight through the crease after a whistle. Doesn’t slow. Doesn’t stop. Slams Garrett back into the crossbar, popping the net off its moorings like a loose tooth.
The guy’s got a shit-eating grin plastered across his face like he’s proud of it.
Garrett sees red. Shoves off the post and drives his blocker into the guy’s chest, hard enough to make him stumble. No one crashes his crease and walks away like it’s a joke.
“What the fuck was that?” he snarls. “You lost, pigeon?”
Tilly’s there in a flash. Jesse too. Shoving the guy back, putting bodies between them before Garrett completely loses his shit. The Storm forward shrugs them off and tries to get close again, throwing elbows like he wants a fight.
“Your tendy’s leaking, bro,” the idiot chirps at them, still struggling to get in Garrett’s face to rattle him. “Grab a bucket.”
Garrett doesn’t blink. “Buddy, my balls dangle more than you,” he says flatly.
Jesse barks a laugh. Tilly shoves both gloves into the guy’s chest and sends him staggering backward.
The linesman skates over and stoops down to set the net back on its pegs. Garrett stays crouched in the crease, mask propped up, sucking in a long breath through his nose.
Head up, eyes up. Don’t carry it.
Then—uninvited, unhelpful—an idle thought flickers into his consciousness.
He wonders whether she saw the hit.
The crash. The shove. The chirps that followed.
Garrett wonders if she laughed. Or flinched. Or rolled her eyes and called him dramatic under her breath.
He shouldn’t care.
But his stomach tightens anyway, like it wants an answer.
He saw her earlier. A shot of the kids from the hospital flashed on the jumbotron, and there she was.
Blurry through the camera but unmistakable, tucked between two kids in wheelchairs.
Her long hair was tied back. She was laughing—full-body, head-tilted—and something about it punched him low in the gut.
She looked lit from the inside, cheeks flushed, eyes shining.
What made her laugh so hard?
And just like that, his edge dulls.
His grip slips. Not literally—his hands are locked in tight—but mentally, he feels it. The tiny drift of attention. The shift. The static in his skull that wasn’t there five seconds ago.
Goddamn it.
His jaw flexes hard behind the cage of his mask.
This is what he doesn’t do. This is why he avoids distractions. He doesn’t let his mind wander. He doesn’t let people in. Not on game day. Not ever, if he can help it.
She’s just noise. Complicated, pretty noise.
He slams his mask back down, and taps his post once, then twice. Focus. Back in.
But the puck drops again, and he’s still not clean.
Still not sharp.
The Storm thread a pass through center ice, and Number 11 rips one from the top of the circle.
Glove side, again.
And this time, he misses entirely.
The puck punches the back of the net with a loud, echoing snap, and the arena groans as the Storm celebrate, arms raised. Number 11 mimes choking at him as he skates past.
Tie game. 3–3.
Jesse skates over and taps his stick against Garrett’s pads. Tells him it was a good shot. That no one could’ve stopped it. Carter offers him a fist bump. Garrett doesn’t take it.
He’s furious.
The self-loathing settles in fast and hard, burning down his throat and into his chest. He grips his stick, smashing it into one post so hard he feels the zing in his teeth.
He saw it coming. He should’ve had it, but was distracted.
And he knows exactly why.
Three-on-three overtime. Fast, furious, and exactly where a goalie earns his paycheck.
Garrett plans to earn it.
He hunches low in the crease, knees bent, eyes tracking the puck as the Storm weave through the neutral zone. Three skaters on three skaters means more space, more speed, and more mistakes waiting to happen. There’s no hiding in overtime.
His focus is steady now, finally. No more drifting thoughts. No static in his skull.
That third-period goal is a memory already. Filed and locked. It happened. He hated it. Moving on.
The only thing that still grates is his twig.
He chipped it. Like a goddamn rookie. Slammed it into the post after the tying goal and chipped the blade enough for the trainers to notice.
“You’re switching,” they said.
He didn’t argue, but he wanted to.
He liked that stick. Four games, three wins. It wasn’t his best, but it had rhythm. He liked the way it felt in his glove. He trusted it.
This new one feels...fine.
But he doesn’t want fine.
The Storm take a quick shot—low, blocker side—and Garrett knocks it away clean. No rebound. Another comes from the slot, a one-timer, fast and angry, and he eats it in the chest, hugging the puck until the whistle blows.
Focus is back. He can feel it in the timing of his slides. The burn in his thighs is good. The sweat dripping under his mask is good. He’s in it now. Fully.
They win the faceoff, and Jesse swings wide, controlling the puck, buying time. The Storm chase hard, but Tilly’s on the ice too, and the defenseman is a goddamn wall when he wants to be.
Garrett watches from the crease—the play he’ll remember all night.
The Storm get greedy. A defenseman pinches up too far, trying to pressure Jesse at the blue line.
Jesse flips a quick, smart pass off the boards.
It bounces once.
Right to Tilly.
He catches it on his stick and takes off like a missile, blowing past the one man back. The arena rises like a wave. Garrett holds his breath.
It’s not pretty. It’s not smooth. Tilly’s not the guy who usually finishes.
But he’s got speed, and he’s got space, and when he winds up, Garrett already knows—
Goal.
Top shelf. Water bottle pops.
The horn blasts like a thunderclap and the crowd erupts.
Garrett doesn’t throw his gloves. Doesn’t pump his fist. He stands still for a moment in the crease, chest heaving. His body’s buzzing with adrenaline. The team pours onto the ice, mobbing Tilly until he disappears under a pile of jerseys.
Good for him, Garrett thinks. Stay-at-home defensemen rarely get that kind of glory.
He taps his stick against the post once, twice, then straightens and skates toward the celebration.
He played sharp when it counted.
And he didn’t think about her.
Not really.
Not until now, anyway.